My Brother, My King
by thorfinn965
Summary: One dark night, Thorin comes to his sister's house in the Ered Luin. Little do Fili and Kili know that the conversation they listen in on will change their lives forever. (Mostly pre-Hobbit. No Durincest.)
1. Death of a Dwarf Lord

**1. Death of a Dwarf Lord**

Kili lay awake, staring at the stone roof overhead and the dancing patterns of firelight cast there by the room's solitary torch. He should have been fast asleep already, since his mother had strictly ordered him off to bed hours ago, but he found that sleep did not come with closing his eyes. Anxiety gnawed in the pit of his stomach, making it growl like a hunting warg.

Or perhaps his stomach merely growled because he hadn't had a decent meal in days.

For weeks, the cupboards of their small home in the Ered Luin had been growing barer and barer, as day by day the meat disappeared, then the vegetables, then the butter, leaving them with only a few stale loaves of bread. But in a few more weeks there would be axes and daggers to sell to the men in the valleys, and then the cupboards would be restocked for a month or so. It never occurred to Kili, only seven years old at the time, that this cycle of food and famine was anything other than ordinary. No one in their village had enough to eat these days, although they shared what they could.

No, what kept Kili awake was not the lack of food. It was the lack of his father. His father had left with Uncle Thorin almost a year ago, and today Uncle Thorin had returned. But Kili's father had not.

"Fili!" Kili hissed, elbowing his older brother.

"Wha'?" Fili blinked his eyes open sleepily and rolled over. _He_ had no trouble sleeping. _He_ didn't feel the same gnawing anxiety that seeing Uncle Thorin return alone had sparked in Kili.

"Mother isn't back yet." There were only two beds in the house, which were really nothing more than slabs of stone jutting from the walls that were covered with thin straw pallets and threadbare blankets. The bed on the opposite side of the room, the one that belonged to Fili and Kili's mother, was conspicuously empty.

"Hrmph." Fili made an unintelligible grunt and rolled back over so that he was facing the wall again.

"She's been talking with Uncle Thorin for _hours_," Kili continued, not bothered by his brother's apparent disinterest. He knew he was listening anyways. "You know they're talking about Father!"

"Wait for the morning," Fili mumbled.

Kili sighed. Both brothers knew full well that whatever was being discussed on the other side of the bedroom door, they were unlikely to ever figure out what it was once the sun had risen and Uncle Thorin had left. When the older members of their family had a secret to keep, they would take it with them to their everlasting graves of stone rather than submit to Fili and Kili's pestering.

Making up his mind in a second, Kili slipped out of bed and made his way to the door, his bare feet not making a sound on the cold stone floor. The rough-hewn wooden door did not quite fit its frame, and through the gap at the bottom came the faint whisper of voices. Kili crouched by the side of the door, careful not to let his small shadow block the flickering torchlight and alert his mother to his presence. He closed his eyes and pressed his ear to thin crack between wood and stone.

Before he could register anything he heard from the other side of the door, there was the rustle of a blanket being thrown back and the soft tread of feet. Kili cracked one eye open and saw his brother crouching on the opposite side of the door. Fili gave him a curt nod, and the brothers strained to hear what their mother and uncle were saying.

"By Durin's beard, Thorin, you've been edging around it for hours!" Fili and Kili immediately recognized the sharp voice as belonging to their mother, Dís. "Tell me about your wanderings some other time. Write a book if they're so fascinating! Tell me what happened to him."

"We were ambushed…" That was Uncle Thorin's deep, gravelly voice. Kili recognized it in a heartbeat, even though it sounded oddly strangled.

"It wasn't painful, was it?" Dís's suddenly hushed voice was barely audible through stone and wood.

Fili arched one thick blond eyebrow in silent question, to which Kili merely shook his head. _Listen_, he mouthed, pressing his ear against the door once again.

"It was quick," Thorin said reassuringly. "Balin and Dwalin had already reached the rocks, and we were running fast behind them. One moment he was by my side, the next he was gone. I looked behind me and saw his body on the ground, an arrow in his back."

"He died running away," Dís whispered.

"He died in battle. We were looking to make a stand at the outcropping, but the orcs had us outnumbered ten to one. Many more perished before we managed to break their lines and retreat into the caves. Afterwards, we looked for his body. This was all we could salvage. I don't want to talk about the ambush, Dís. We've lost too many to those vile scum as it is."

There was the hard, cold _thunk_ of a metal object hitting the table, and then there was silence.

Fili and Kili exchanged horrified glances. Were they hearing what they thought they were hearing? Their father was _dead_? A strange numbness settled over Kili like a cloak. He must have heard wrong… Father couldn't be dead…

"But what were orcs doing in the Emyn Uial, so far from Gundabad?" Dís's voice was sharp with worry.

"Dark times are coming, Dís," Thorin said. "Orcs are roaming further and further from Gundabad each day. The Misty Mountains ring from forges not in Moria, but in Goblintown. Wargs have been sighted south of the Ettenmoors for the first time in centuries. Something has awoken from the shadows."

Kili drew back from the door an inch. This was grown-up business, this talk of orcs and goblins and wargs. He shouldn't be listening, he shouldn't know… But the lure of the forbidden was too great, and the mention of Kili's name drew his attention back to the conversation in the kitchen.

"What of Fili and Kili?" This was Dís, her voice under control again. She sounded calm, confident, everything Kili needed to hear to be reassured that everything was going to be alright. They were safe in the Ered Luin. Orcs didn't come this far west.

Thorin sighed. "They are of the line of Durin, Dís, as are we. You know the darkness will be hunting them. As long as we are scattered, as long as we are weak, we are all of us vulnerable. A day will come when there are orcs in the Blue Mountains. How soon is the question."

"Our people cannot defend the Ered Luin as we once did," Dís mused sorrowfully. "Nogrod and Belegost, those ancient strongholds of Durin's Folk, were lost Ages ago when the West sank beneath the waves. We have no leader, no home. The Ered Luin will not be safe for long."

"That is why we need Erebor," Thorin stated firmly. "Too long has the dragon slept in the halls of _our_ people, hoarding _our_ treasure and making _our_ home his own. If we reclaim Erebor, we can stand firm against this tide of darkness."

"Erebor was lost, Thorin."

"But one day we will take it back. I swear to you, Dís, your sons will see Erebor reclaimed."

_Erebor_, Fili mouthed, the wonder written plainly across his face.

Erebor. Kili had heard stories of the ancient stronghold of the dwarves, the great city under the Lonely Mountain that had been sacked by the dragon Smaug years upon years ago. What he would give to travel with Uncle Thorin to Erebor, to reclaim his homeland…

"Then we have work to do, my brother." There was the sound of a chair scraping against the floor as Dís rose to her feet. "You should rest now. In the morning we shall tell the boys about their father's death."

"And you? You will not rest?"

"No, Thorin Oakenshield, I will not rest. I will not rest until Smaug is dead and Erebor ours. I will not rest until I see the halls of our grandfather Thror returned to us and the Arkenstone glittering above the throne. I will not rest until the wargs have been driven back into their foul caverns of Gundabad and the orcs dare not show their faces in the light of this good earth. I will not rest until I know my sons are safe."

"Then you have a long night ahead of you, my sister." Thorin's chair scraped back from the table and the two eavesdroppers could hear his footsteps coming closer and closer to the door.

Without a sound, the brothers raced for their bed and dove under the blanket, managing to calm their breathing just in time as the door creaked open. Thorin tiptoed into the bedroom, closing the door carefully behind him.

Kili lay on the bed with his eyes closed, trying desperately to calm his racing heart and praying that Thorin had not heard them dashing away from the door.

But all Thorin did was walk quietly over to the brothers' bed, and Kili felt the mattress sink slightly as his uncle sat down. Then Thorin began to sing in his deep, rich baritone, as Kili's father had once sang to him.

"_Far over the Misty Mountains cold,_

_To dungeons deep and caverns old…_"

It was not Thorin's singing that finally lulled Kili to sleep, though.

No, Kili fell asleep to the clash of hammer on anvil and the whoosh of the bellows, to the ringing of iron and the clamor of steel. Kili fell asleep to a sound he had not heard in many a long year: the sound of Dís at the forge.

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**Author's Note: So I finally got around to starting a Hobbit story... (Yes, I know the title I'm using is an abridged version of one of Boromir's lines from Fellowship of the Ring. Shh. It works.) Thanks for reading! And reviews are always welcome!**


	2. A Promise to Keep

**2. A Promise to Keep**

When Kili awoke the next morning, neither Thorin nor Dís was there in the bedroom. It was just him and Fili and the nearly-burnt out torch. As he stretched and shoved back the threadbare blue blanket, last night seemed like a dream, far away and unreal. It couldn't have really happened, could it? He must have dreamed what Uncle Thorin had said. Father must have just gotten delayed coming home.

At Kili's movement, Fili woke too. It was when Fili opened his haunted blue eyes that reality came crashing back down on Kili's shoulders like an avalanche.

Father was dead.

Kili knew it in his heart, even if he didn't want to accept it. Fili's eyes told him everything. Fili, who was old enough to wake knowing he hadn't dreamed last night's conversation. Fili, who was strong enough to admit the truth. Fili, who Kili knew had cried himself to sleep after Uncle Thorin had gone to bed.

The brothers didn't need to speak. They looked at each other, and they knew.

Father was dead, and now they were going to have to face Mother and Uncle Thorin.

Together they made their way to the ill-shaped wooden door and together they pulled it open. Together they stepped out into the small house's second room and did their best to keep their faces smiling and innocent as they saw Thorin and Dís sitting at the cracked old kitchen table.

No one who looked at Thorin and Dís could have doubted that they were brother and sister. They had the same wavy dark brown hair that bordered on black, the same sharp profile, the same defiant hazel eyes. Thorin's beard was scraggly and unkempt from weeks on the road, but it was braided in the same manner as Dís's beard and the brothers knew that once Thorin had the chance to freshen up, he would look almost identical to their mother.

"Sit down," Thorin said, motioning to the chairs on either side of him. Kili gulped, his heart twisting as he saw that Thorin sat in his father's traditional place, but he skipped forwards to sit next to Uncle Thorin anyways, smiling as if nothing was wrong. Fili settled himself on the other side of their uncle as Dís slid a thin slate platter with a slice of bread and a tiny dab of strawberry preserve towards each of them.

"Strawberry jam!" Kili cried, joyfully attacking his breakfast. He hadn't seen strawberry jam in months.

"Uncle Thorin brought some," Dís said softly, staring over Kili's head to lock eyes with her brother. Kili was so engrossed in his breakfast that he almost missed the curt nod that passed between the two siblings.

"Fili, Kili," Thorin sighed, placing an arm around each of their shoulders and looking from one brother to the other, "Your father is dead."

Kili didn't quite know how to react. He already knew, of course, but there was something about hearing the words plain and simple from Uncle Thorin's mouth that made them strike home as they hadn't before. First his great-grandfather, then his grandfather and Uncle Frerin, now his father… Orcs were destroying his family.

He shivered, on the verge of tears, when Thorin pulled him and Fili into an embrace.

"Shh," Thorin whispered, gently stroking Kili's hair. "It will be alright. I won't let anything happen to you." The fur of his robe was warm and soft as Kili buried his face in it and sobbed quietly to himself, almost missing Dís's stern retort.

"Don't make promises you can't keep, brother."

"But I _will_ keep it." Fili and Kili glanced up, hearing the iron in their uncle's voice. "I shall teach them how to fight in place of their father. I shall teach them when to run and when to stand. I will teach them how to survive in the wild. And one day, I shall teach them what it means to be King Under the Mountain."

Dís fell silent, and Fili and Kili watched as a silent battle of wills was waged between their mother and uncle, fought with nothing more than the force of their gaze. Finally Dís sighed and marched over to the furnace in the corner of the kitchen. It had been cold and dead for many months, only occasionally used as a fireplace in the winter, but now Kili saw that the embers were glowing orange once again and it still radiated heat.

Picking up two sturdy dwarven blades, newly forged and almost identical to Thorin's own sword, Dís slapped them down on the table. The clatter of steel on stone rang out like a challenge.

"You teach them," Dís growled. "You teach them well."

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**Author's Note: Thanks for reading! I'm not quite sure how often I'll update this... Once a week, maybe?**


	3. Blunt Knives and Cracked Plates

**3. Blunt Knives and Cracked Plates**

Thorin started to reach for the miniature swords on the table and inspect his sister's handiwork, but a glare from Dís stopped him. Instead, he gave Fili and Kili a nudge and nodded towards the twin blades.

Hesitantly, Kili lifted his head from the safety of Thorin's chest and reached out for the hilt closest to him. Before his hand closed around it, he glanced in Fili's direction and saw that his brother was moving to pick up the other sword. Reassured by the sight of the sword in Fili's hand, Kili wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his own blade.

The leather of the grip pressed against his palm, strange and comforting at the same time. Although it was only a little over a foot and a half in length, the blade was heavy— forged of good dwarven steel—and Kili struggled to lift it.

"Those are well-crafted blades," Thorin told the brothers. "Fit for the heirs of Durin. Treat them with respect and they will serve you well."

Suddenly, Kili had the overwhelming urge to throw the sword away. At his uncle's words, images of the uses for which the blade would be put to popped into his mind. The clash of steel, the tang of blood, the feel of metal biting into flesh… The young dwarf shuddered. He didn't want to fight, didn't want to go to war, didn't want to die in battle like his father…

He snuck a glance at Fili, and to his disappointment he saw that his brother was staring at the weapon in his hands with an odd light in his blue eyes. A thin smile played across Fili's lips as he leapt from his chair and held the blade out before him, his arms shaking only slightly from the unfamiliar weight.

"Look at me, Mother!" he cried happily, sweeping the sword in a careful arc. "I'll be just like Uncle Thorin!"

Thorin smiled that grim little smile of his. "Widen your stance, Fili," he instructed. "Move your feet further apart. It improves your balance."

Unnoticed by his uncle, whose attention was now fixed wholly on his brother, Kili slunk back into his own chair and stared at the sword in his hands. What was _he_ supposed to do with a sword? He had never been more than a mile from where he had been born. He wasn't an adventurer or a traveler like Uncle Thorin. He didn't want to slay orcs or spend his life fighting.

At that moment he might have gone unobserved by Thorin, but Dís's watchful eyes saw everything.

"Kili!" she snapped, and he jumped to attention, pulled out of his dismal reverie. "That plate isn't getting any emptier!"

With a tiny smile of his own, Kili picked up the slate platter, spun it around once in his fingers, and sent it zooming towards Dís with a flick of his wrist. His mother caught the plate in midair with her left hand and let it roll down her arm, across her shoulders, and into her right hand so she could toss it back to him. Kili reached out to catch it lightly in his fingertips before sending it back to her.

He was good at these little games of throw and catch. Ever since he could remember, his mother had encouraged him to play with his plates and eating utensils after meals—to toss plates back and forth with Fili, to juggled empty tankards, to catapult forks around the kitchen, anything that kept the items moving and his fingers occupied. Of course, in the beginning there had been quite a few cracked plates and blunted knives, but over time his hand-eye coordination had improved greatly. He actually fancied that he was better at their little games than Fili was, not that he would ever tell his brother that.

"You still do that, sister?" Thorin asked, momentarily diverted from instructing Fili by the sound of flying plates.

"I remember three young dwarves who used to play the same game with their father in Erebor," Dís retorted. "You will find that my sons have as good an aim as any of our kin and faster reflexes than some other dwarves I can name. I have already started their training, Thorin."

It had never occurred to Kili before that all those times they had been playing with dishes, they had been practicing skills for fighting. Dís had never given any explanations for their games. Had she been training them in other ways too, ways that the brothers had not noticed until now?

"You used to do this?" Fili cried disbelievingly, placing his sword reverently on the table. "Prove it!" He tossed Thorin his empty plate, which his uncle deftly caught.

"I seem to remember that we had some sort of routine," the older dwarf mused. "It started something like this, didn't it?" He tossed the plate into the air with a grin and caught it in the crook of his elbow, bouncing it from arm to arm as Dís picked up Kili's abandoned plate and started rolling it across her knuckles. With a snap of her wrist, Dís flung the plate at her older brother just as he tossed his to her.

Thorin spun around and caught the plate without looking before whirling it back at Dís, who took a step back and let both plates come to rest on her foot before flicking them up into her hands again. Somehow, in between juggling the two plates, she managed to fire a few forks and a knife at Thorin as Fili and Kili looked on in dumbstruck amazement.

Their mother and their uncle—_playing_?

Thorin snatched the two forks and caught the knife between their tines. "I don't think we've done this since we were children in Erebor," he laughed, the sorrow of years of exile vanishing from his face for a few precious moments.

"I still say I'm better than you," Dís teased, suddenly his carefree younger sister again.

"We'll see about that!" As Thorin flicked the knife into the air and catapulted it away from him, Dís rolled one of the plates that was currently bouncing from shoulder to shoulder down into her hand and skimmed it low across the table.

Both old, blunt knife and slightly cracked plate came to rest with a clatter on the floor in the exact same spot, some distance away from Thorin and Dís. The siblings caught the rest of their flying utensils as they stared at the grounded dish, and suddenly the years of grief and loss swept over their faces again.

"I think you were supposed to get those, Frerin," Dís sighed.

But her second brother had been slain at the Battle of Azanulbizar, the last battle of the War of the Dwarves and Orcs, some seventy years ago, and he had no answer for her now.


	4. A Dream of Days to Come

**4. A Dream of Days to Come**

The days were kind to Kili, bright sunlit days that he spent on the flanks of the Ered Luin sparring with his uncle and brother, growing used to the weight of the sword in his hand, and coming home to Dís each evening as the sun began to set and cast the mountains into shadow.

The nights, on the other hand, were anything but kind to the young dwarf.

Their little two-room house was far too small for three people, let alone four, so Thorin ended up sleeping on the bedroom floor. He had offered to ask his companions Dwalin and Balin if he could stay with them, but Dís insisted that the house wasn't too crowded if he wished to stay. So stay he had, for which Kili would be forever grateful.

When the night came and the candles began to die, Thorin would sit on the edge of Fili and Kili's bed as he had done that first night and sing to them of the Lonely Mountain and the line of Durin. He told them stories of their great-grandfather, Thror, and the wondrous jewel known as the Arkenstone, his deep voice lulling the brothers to sleep as he spoke of the treasures that would one day be theirs when they took up their rightful places as Princes Under the Mountain.

But whenever Kili closed his eyes, that was when the dreams would come.

_Smoke and ash chafe against his skin, burning their way down his throat until he doubles over, coughing and retching as if to hack up his own lungs. There is soot in his mouth that tastes of burnt wood and flakes of iron, soot that he cannot wash away no matter how many times he swallows or rakes his tongue across the roof of his mouth. His hands are black with grime, but they are too large and calloused to be his hands as he remembers them._

_ All of a sudden, Kili realizes that he is taller—older. The bare rock beneath his feet is not that of the Ered Luin where he grew up, but the bedrock of some far-away mountain now streaked with soot and ravaged by fire._

_ The fire. Never has he seen such a fire._

_ It is all around him, engulfing him like a great maw of flame made of a myriad of licking tongues of orange and gold. The heat is almost unbearable, even for a dwarf. It is hotter than the hottest furnace, hot enough to melt the steel of his sword._

_ Nothing can survive the fire._

_ "Fili," Kili tries to choke out, knowing that his brother is somewhere close by, but unable to raise his voice above a low rasp. Even that hurts, the word forcing its way brutally through his charred throat._

_ No one answers him._

_ Shapes move in the flame, shapes of dwarves and men, orcs and wargs. He can see that they are fighting, but the roar of the fire drowns out all other noise._

_ And then he is falling to his knees, his face striking the hard, unforgiving rock of a foreign mountain as his vision begins to waver. The fire is drawing closer, but he cannot bring himself to move. He is trapped._

_ Then he hears it, a great bellow that shatters his eardrums and resonates out across the fiery ruin of the mountain. Something rises out of the flames, something so impossibly huge that it blocks the sun and casts the whole battlefield into shadow._

_ Kili knows what it is. _

_ Amidst dragon fire and dwarven steel, the darkness takes him._

Kili woke with a whimper, still imagining that he could feel the burn of the ash in his throat and the heat of the dragon fire on his skin. The darkness of the room was cool, soothing, but his mind kept replaying the nightmare over and over again. It had been so real…

Beside him, Fili mumbled and turned over in his sleep, reminding Kili that his brother was still there. If he woke Fili up now, his brother would listen as he told the dream and then confidently reassure him that nothing was wrong, that it had only been his mind playing tricks on him. The only dragon they knew of was Smaug, and he was far away in Erebor.

But Fili had trained hard with Uncle Thorin, and Kili knew his brother was exhausted. It wouldn't be fair to wake him for something so trivial as a dream. He told himself that it would be okay. That if he could just wait for morning, then the sun would come again to banish his nightmares back to whatever fell realm they came from. He began to hum snatches of an old song Dís used to sing to him to calm his racing heart.

_"Over mountains high and rivers deep,_

_ 'Cross plains wide and valleys steep,_

_ There once ruled a Dwarven King,_

_ List to me, of him I sing…"_

And then, out of the darkness, there came another voice, a soft, low alto voice that echoed comfortingly around the room.

_"His arm was strong, his aim was true,_

_ But once he was no more than you,_

_ A son of Durin with a dream,_

_ A dwarven prince with eyes agleam."_

It was his mother's voice, Dís's voice. Kili heard the soft rustle of blankets and the steady tread of feet as she made her way around Thorin's sleeping form to crouch by his bedside. She didn't ask him what was wrong, just pulled him into a tight embrace and let his head rest on her chest. She was so solid, like stone herself, like the roots of the mountains. In her arms, he would always be safe.

* * *

**Author's Note: Thanks for reading! Poem written by me, but inspired by Tolkien's "Far Over the Misty Mountains." (Tolkien's poetry is absolutely amazing, so I shall credit him/give the name of the poem whenever one makes an appearance!)**


	5. Fight and Flight

**5. Fight and Flight**

Kili quickly fell into his new pattern of life, which consisted of waking each day at dawn, eating whatever scant breakfast Dís had thrown together, and then leaving for training with Uncle Thorin. Sometimes Dís came with her sons, but more often than not she stayed home. Kili could tell that she was planning something, and he found that Fili shared his suspicions, but their only hint to her actions was the steady glow of the forge and the continual ringing of hammer on anvil.

"Come, Kili, keep up!" Thorin barked, and Kili had to jog to catch up with his uncle and brother. It wasn't fair, how they expected him to match pace with them when his legs were so much shorter…

But Kili did not complain. Dís had taught him that whining was a sign of weakness, and so he never raised his voice in protest to Uncle Thorin. It might have been his imagination, but there were times when Kili thought he caught a glimpse of pride on his uncle's face when he passed up opportunity after opportunity for complaint during training.

This training was not held within the narrow valley where Dís and the other refugees from Erebor had settled, the valley that now supported a dozen or so ramshackle stone huts built around shallow crevices in the rock that made the houses half cottage and half cave. A winding path led out of the valley and up onto the mountainside, from which Kili could see the tell-tale smoke rising from his house's chimney to let him know that Dís was working at the forge again.

By now it was summertime in the Ered Luin, and the rocky mountain slopes were covered in a thick carpet of purple heather. Every now and then a wind-stunted tree broke the horizon, but for the most part the mountain flanks were flat, with large expanses of bedrock scoured free of dirt scattered amongst patches of alpine flora. The rugged western mountains were all Kili had ever known, and as he heard the thrushes chirp their afternoon greeting and watched the falcons soaring overhead, he knew that the mountains were all he needed.

One day close to midsummer, two dwarves were waiting for them by the rocks where Thorin took them to train. The white-haired one was Balin; the balding one with the tattoos his brother, Dwalin. They were related to Fili and Kili in some distant manner that went back too many generations for the young dwarves to remember, but all that really mattered was that they were friends of Thorin and would help to train the brothers from time to time.

"Thorin!" Dwalin hailed Kili's uncle in his deep, rough voice. "There's news. Gloin and Oin came last night." The tattooed dwarf's expression was always grim, but that day it seemed grimmer than Kili had ever seen it before.

"Go practice," Thorin told Fili and Kili, shooing them away as he strode over to his friends. The three older dwarves stood in a circle, talking in hushed voices about things that were clearly not meant for the brothers' ears.

So Fili and Kili faced off on the rocky slope a short distance away, and Kili steeled himself for another beating at the hands of his brother. He didn't think that Fili was consciously rough with him. It was just that he got carried away and sometimes, in trying to impress their uncle, he forgot that Kili was five years younger and neither as fast nor as strong as he was.

"Uncle Thorin says I'm just like his brother, Frerin, when he was young," Fili said proudly, brandishing his short sword and admiring the way the sunlight glinted off the blade. "He says I'm going to be a great warrior!"

Kili stayed silent, only nodding in agreement. He wasn't exactly jealous of his brother—_he_ certainly didn't want to be a warrior—but it hurt all the same that Thorin focused most of his efforts on Fili and left him to struggle along behind. Thorin had certainly never complemented Kili…

"You don't believe me, do you?" Fili said, glowering as he misinterpreted Kili's silence as disbelief. "I'll prove it to you!"

Before Kili had a chance to protest, Fili charged over the uneven terrain with his sword held firmly in his hands. Kili raised his own sword to block Fili's first downward swing, and he felt the shock of the impact run through his hands, up his arms, and make his shoulders shake. He wanted to stop, but he knew that he had no choice. Uncle Thorin had told them to practice, so practice they would.

Fili rained blow after blow on his younger brother, and Kili countered every one with increasing desperation. There were large differences between a seven-year-old dwarf and a twelve-year-old dwarf, and at that moment none knew them as well as Kili did. He wasn't nearly strong enough to best his brother, or to ward off his attacks for long. Already his arms were trembling with fatigue as he struggled to raise his sword.

In a very short time, the blade felt like a bar of lead in Kili's hand, dragging him down to the ground against his will. His lungs were on fire and his muscles burned, conjuring unwanted images of the nightmares that would not stay confined to the night. Ash and smoke and dragon fire… That was a dwarf warrior's lot…

The sword clattered from his hand as Kili leapt back to avoid Fili's next advance. It lay there on the dark granite bedrock of the Ered Luin, silently daring him to pick it back up and fight on. Kili wouldn't listen to it though. To tell the truth, he was scared of what would happen if he listened to it. He was frightened that if he held it in his hands long enough, if he fought hard enough with it, he would start to hear the blade-song singing in his skull, the song of warriors and heroes marching down a path that led to both fame and slaughter. The thought that one day he would learn to love and live by the sword as Uncle Thorin did—as he could see that Fili was starting to do—left Kili numb with fear.

Defiant to the last, Kili scrambled backwards over the rocks, away from the sword, away from Fili, away from that cloud of fate that loomed like a dragon's breath. His scramble turned into a dash, and his dash turned into a full-scale sprint as he darted away from the promise of the warrior he would one day become.

Kili ran, leaping over stones and careening across scrub grasses, his heart pounding a dreadful tattoo in his chest, like the beat of drums, the tramp of feet, the flap of dragon wings… His feet made light by the instinctual fear that had risen in him, Kili ran on…

…Straight into Uncle Thorin.

"Dwarves do not run from battle," Thorin said gravely, looking down on his young nephew with disapproving eyes. Dwalin and Balin waited silently a few paces away, watching as the scene played out. "We stand our ground, as immovable as the mountains, and we do not back down. Durin's Folk do not run. Repeat after me, Kili. _Durin's Folk do not run._"

"Durin's Folk do not run," Kili mumbled, looking at the ground and scuffing the stone with his foot as his cheeks blazed red with embarrassment. The knowledge that he had disappointed Thorin was a weight on his heart, almost as heavy as the sword had been in his hand.

"Louder," his uncle commanded. "I can't hear you."

"Durin's Folk do not run," Kili said again, his voice louder but his downcast eyes still not meeting Thorin's furious gaze.

"Are you speaking to me or not?" Thorin snapped, his patience at an end.

"Durin's Folk do not run!" Kili yelled, finally looking up as he clenched his hands into fists. Embarrassment had turned into anger, hot as the flames of Dís's forge, that burned in Kili's heart and sharpened his tongue as he lashed out against his uncle. "Durin's Folk don't run, so I guess you _walked_ away from Erebor!"

"You're a foolish youngling who knows nothing of the world," Thorin replied, his voice low and dangerous. But he said nothing more than that, and Kili knew that he had struck as deep a blow as words could strike. No matter what Uncle Thorin said, that fact would always remain: he had fled Erebor. He, the heir of Durin, had run away.

* * *

**Author's Note: Long time, no update! Sorry about that! I'll try to update more often. At the moment, I think this is going to be somewhere around 15 chapters... And I'll be a kind person and say right now that it will end before the Battle of Five Armies. Thanks for reading!**


	6. His Mother's Plan

**6. His Mother's Plan**

"How did training go?" Dís asked cheerfully as Thorin, Fili, and Kili trooped back into the small house. Her burly arms were streaked with sweat and her face was red from exertion, but something that might have been a smile flitted across her face as she hung her apron up on a hook by the forge and shook her dark brown hair free of its ponytail.

"One day Fili will make a fine warrior, a true heir to our line," Thorin replied, putting his arm around his blond-haired nephew's shoulders and looking down on him with pride.

"And what of Kili?" queried Dís, wiping her hands on a threadbare towel.

Kili stood a few paces behind Thorin and Fili, his eyes downcast. He knew he shouldn't have spoken like that to Uncle Thorin, but it was too late now to take back his words and he was far too stubborn to apologize.

"He's hopeless. No one can teach him." Thorin's voice turned dark, but he did not even deign to look at his younger nephew, whose face now began to blush deep crimson red.

"You took an oath, Thorin Oakenshield," Dís said, her own voice becoming threatening. "You said you would train him."

"I said I would train him, not listen to his ill-worded insults and watch him become the greatest disgrace of a dwarf ever born to this line!" snapped Thorin. Kili's face felt as if it was on fire. He hadn't _meant_ to make Uncle Thorin angry, he hadn't _meant_ to disappoint him…

"Boys, go out and play." Fili and Kili let their mother shoo them out the door, glad to be in the open and away from their uncle's coming eruption. "Be back in time for dinner!" she added as the pair scampered away from home, heading for the fields in the center of the valley where they could tussle together, playing at orcs and dwarves, and pretend for just a little while longer that growing up was something very far away.

* * *

"Fili! Kili!" Dís called some time later, her voice ringing off the valley's steep sides. The brothers obediently ceased their play, raced for home, and slid to a halt in front of the cottage-cave, Fili standing tall and proud in the knowledge that he had done nothing wrong and Kili cowering behind his older brother.

"Fili, go inside and help your uncle cook dinner," Dís ordered in a tone that brooked no argument. Kili knew that his brother was about to mutter something about how he hated cooking and Thorin always burned dinner, but the mutiny was quelled by a stern glare from his mother that sent him scampering inside.

That left Kili standing alone outside with no protection from his mother's rage. He braced himself for a stern lashing, but Dís strode out of the house and closed the door behind her.

"Come with me, Kili," she instructed, slinging a large canvas sack over her shoulder and setting off into the dusky valley.

Kili trailed after her, the sense of dread growing in his heart. He wanted to ask where they were going, but he knew his mother would not answer him. And so he stayed silent and followed her through the valley as the sun began to sink below the peaks of the Ered Luin and the dwarven colony began to settle down for the night. Dís led him past the houses, beyond the small enclosure that kept Thorin, Dwalin, and Balin's ponies, down a scarcely trodden path, and all the way to a crack that ran through the valley wall like a jagged scar.

Dís motioned for Kili to slip inside the gap, and he managed to worm his way through to the cavern that lay on the other side. What little light that reached through the crevice was blocked as Dís squeezed through behind him, and suddenly Kili was plunged into darkness.

To Kili's surprise, the darkness held no fear for him. His eyes grew wide as he strained to catch a glimmer of light that did not exist, but he found that he did not need light as his mother stepped forwards to take his hand. She led him deeper into the gloom and laid his hand on the back wall of the cavern, which from the echo of their footsteps he could tell was large, but whose exact size was impossible to determine.

There were marks there, carved deep into the stone where sunlight never reached. Kili ran his free hand over the scratches, and slowly he realized that they were not just random marks but letters, words, _names._

Thror.

Thrain.

Frerin.

Names he knew.

Anar.

Vindain.

Frar.

Names he did not know.

His fingers traced the names in the darkness, harsh lines and jagged curves chiseled into the rock to—to what? What did the names mean, the familiar ones and those he had never heard before? Why were they here, at the back of this dark cavern? Suddenly, Kili's wandering hand brushed against something that wasn't letters. It was a single sloping line running across the wall, joined by a series of other lines that met in a peak to form a shape that was vaguely triangular.

It was a mountain. A single mountain surrounded by a wall of names.

"These are the names of all those who died without a grave," Dís whispered in his ear. He could not see her, but he could feel her presence at his shoulder, a bulwark as solid as the stone around him. "From the coming of Smaug to the Battle of Azanulbizar… Thror and Frerin, my brother and grandfather slain by orcs. Thrain, my father, vanished. And so many others… So many, many others…"

Was Dís crying? Kili had never heard his mother cry, but here in the cave of names he thought he heard a sob work its way into her voice.

"Anar, my best friend and one of the finest smiths of Erebor. Frar, her son who was no older than you. Vindain, an old dwarf with a beard that fell all the way to his feet, who used to sell the wares of the mountain in Dale. Grinnar, a traveling bard who had the most wonderful voice…" The list of names went on and on. Craftsmen and peddlers, friends and family, masters and apprentices, adults and children… A whole kingdom reduced to memories and carved inscriptions.

Kili felt guilt bubble up in his heart. He shouldn't have spoken to Uncle Thorin like that, not before he fully understood what had been lost with the fall of Erebor.

His mother did not need to ask for confirmation of this. She knew when he squeezed her hand and pressed up close against her side, as if she was a boulder that could shield him from the heat of the dragon's breath that he could feel on the back of his neck, even now.

"Is Father's name here?" he asked softly.

"Yes," Dís breathed in his ear, taking his hand and guiding it to the runes carved below Frerin's name. "I carved it there when Thorin returned, in darkness as all the others were carved. For in darkness they now dwell, unto the ending of the world."

"I don't want you to be a name on a wall," Kili whispered. "Or Fili, or Uncle Thorin, or Dwalin, or Balin, or me…"

"And that is why you must train hard, so that you can protect those you love." Dís pressed something into his hands then, something smooth and wooden. His fingers curled around the stave, feeling the leather-bound grip and traveling down the two symmetrical ends to where the wood curved outwards and a waxed string was strung.

Kili knew what he held in his hands.

It was a bow.

There was still a part of him that wanted to throw the weapon away, but it was silenced by the voices that clamored in his head, voices of smiths and farmers, miners and craftsmen, those who had perished in the fires of Smaug.

His fingers ran over one final set of runes in the darkness, carved into the flank of the mountain. These runes were not names, but a poem.

_These were the brave who died that day,_

_ When the flames of Smaug stole Erebor away,_

_ Some died in the fight, some died in the fray,_

_ We carry their memories, we who could not stay._

_ For that was their destiny, that was their doom,_

_ No grave of stone for their ever-lasting tomb,_

_ But one day again there will be light in the gloom,_

_ And over the mountain the wyrm will never again loom._

_ For there is hope, as long as we remain,_

_ That one day our kingdom will be our home again._

* * *

**Author's Note: Thanks for reading! Poem written by me, not really inspired by any particular one of Tolkien's this time...**


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